Please Help Me Sponsor a Children's Defense Fund Freedom School for Summer 2017

As an educator and a parent, I know the value of our students not losing instructional time during the summer months away from their respective schools. Many students leave school in May or June and do not participate in anything academic until school starts again in August or September. This is not the case for students who are fortunate enough to attend a Children's Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School that may be offered in their area.

I can personally attest to the benefits of Freedom School because my children attended the first one sponsored by the St. Luke Community Development Corporation (CDC) some years ago. It is this same CDC who I am a part of who is raising funds to sponsor another Freedom School for the Summer of 2017.

Across all of my social media sites I have nearly twenty five thousand connections and as a part of my fundraising efforts, I am asking that a minimum of five thousand of you donate a minimum of one dollar. For that matter ten thousand of you can donate fifty cents and so on and so on. My goal is to raise and donate five thousand dollars to the school.

The trickiest part in my mind (and it really is not that tricky) is downloading the Givelify app on your mobile device.  It will take a couple of minutes for you to set up the app in order for the dollar to be withdrawn from your account. It will actually probably take you a couple of more minutes to set it up than to actually donate the dollar, but it is for an extremely good cause.

Once you've downloaded the app and created your profile, select "Charities" from the bottom (it looks like a ribbon) and then input into the search box Saint Luke CDC. Tap the "Donate" button at the bottom and determine your donation amount. I am only asking you for a dollar, (of course you can donate more if you'd like) so you would tap "other" input $1.00 and tap "Done."  Once you have done this you will see a choice of where your donation can go.  Select "Freedom School." That's it and you will have helped a child have a summer academic experience of a lifetime.  The CDF Freedom Schools program is outlined below and briefly in the video above. I thank you in advance for helping me to raise funds such a worthy cause.

The CDF Freedom Schools® program seeks to build strong, literate, and empowered children prepared to make a difference in themselves, their families, communities, nation and world today. By providing summer and after-school reading enrichment for children who might otherwise not have access to books, the CDF Freedom Schools program plays a much needed role in helping to curb summer learning loss and close achievement gaps — and is a key part of CDF’s work to ensure a level playing field for all children. In partnership with local congregations, schools, colleges and universities, community organizations, and secure juvenile justice facilities the CDF Freedom Schools program boosts student motivation to read, generates more positive attitudes toward learning, increases self-esteem and connects the needs of children and families to the resources of their communities. Since 1995, more than 137,000 preK-12 children have had a CDF Freedom Schools experience and more than 16,000 college students and young adult staff have been trained by CDF to deliver this empowering model. 

The CDF Freedom Schools model incorporates the totality of the Children's Defense Fund's mission by fostering environments that support children and young adults to excel and believe in their ability to make a difference Site coordinators and project directors are also trained by CDF to provide supervision and administrative oversight.
The program provides an exciting Integrated Reading Curriculum (IRC) including carefully chosen developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant books. The model curriculum supports children and families around five essential components.

Something to critically think about. Hear me live as I broadcast around the world on gobrave.org each Saturday at 6:00 a.m. ET as the host of The Reading Circle with Marc Medley. The show can also be heard locally in northern NJ on FM radio WP88.7 FM. I also invite you to follow me on Twitter @readingcircle01 and @thinkcritical01. Again I thank you for joining me in supporting this worthy endeavor.